Outlawing the Naming of Agents

Lobster Issue 5 (1984) £££

A. Some two months ago, the Guardian revealed that the British Government was considering the introduction of a bill under which it would become illegal to claim that any individual is an officer or agent of either the Security Service (MI5) or of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). It was also made known that the … Read more

Weird/not weird

Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003) £££

Yesterday’s loony tunes become today’s reality. Here are some recent examples. Gulf war syndrome, whose existence has been denied by the Ministry of Defence for over a decade, is now being admitted. As the Telegraph’s version of the story put it: ‘Soldiers sent to the 1991 Gulf war were given a combination of vaccines that … Read more

Within The Secret State: a disturbing study of the use and misuse of power

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Lobster Issue 57 (Summer 2009) £££

Peter Evans Brighton, Sussex: The Book Guild, 2009, h/b, £16.99 Author Evans was a Times journalist in the 1960s and 1970s, for 17 years The Times’ Home Affairs correspondent when it still was the voice of the ‘British establishment’. Evans knew MI5 people and got material from them. He also got material from IRD (unidentified … Read more

The accountability of the intelligence and security services

Lobster Issue 50 (Winter 2005/6) £££

Accountability I will be discussing a non subject – the accountability of the intelligence services. By accountable we mean the ability to be brought to account, to be answerable for their actions, to be subject to scrutiny and ultimately to have their actions adjudicated upon in a court of law. I will be looking at … Read more

Brainwash: The secret history of mind control

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Lobster Issue 52 (Winter 2006/7) £££

Dominic Streatfeild London: Hodder and Stoughton 2006, £20, h/b   One of the gaps in the parapolitical library has been a great pull-together of the material on ‘mind control’. And Streatfield has done it, and done it rather well. He is a documentary film-maker and some of the chapters here read rather like scripts. All … Read more

The Strength of the Wolf

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Lobster Issue 48 (Winter 2004) £££

The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs Douglas Valentine London/New York: Verso, 2004, h/back, £20   This comes garlanded with praise from Jim Hougan and Anthony Summers. The praise is justified: this is, as Hougan says, ‘a ground-breaking work of investigative reporting’; and it is, as Summers says, ‘a … Read more

The View from the Bridge

Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003) £££

Do they talk like this? At < www.lewrockwell.com/cummings/cummings29.html > there is a very interesting piece by Richard Cummings about the CIA and publishing; agents and operations are named. At the top of the article is this quote. ‘We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine, and other great publications whose … Read more

The Iron Triangle: inside the secret world of the Carlyle Group

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Lobster Issue 46 (Winter 2003) £££

Dan Briody Hoboken (USA): John Wiley and Sons, 2003, £17.50 (hb)   According to the Carlyle Group, once you ‘peel away the layers of factual errors and self-righteousness of The Iron Triangle, ‘… all you’re left with is baseless innuendo… [and]… this book should be exposed for what it is: a compilation of recycled conspiracy … Read more

Everything You Know is Wrong: the Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies

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Lobster Issue 44 (Winter 2002/3) £££

Russ Kick (ed.) New York: the Disinformation Company, 2002, pb, $24.95. Distributed in the UK by Turnaround () £17.99 in the UK   Another massive anthology from the Disinformation people. This is 11″ by 9″ – roughly A4 sized – 345 pages, weighing in at 2 lbs and 11 ounces. Picking it up probably counts … Read more

A short history of Lobster

Lobster Issue

By Robin Ramsay See also: Lobster (magazine) at Wikipedia. Updated June 2022 The first issue of Lobster appeared in 1983. It was written by Stephen Dorril and myself. We met through the late Harry Irwin, who lived in Northern Ireland and was what Americans call a book scout: he bought and sold rare books. But … Read more

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